This rich resource has it all. Here's a book teachers can use to facilitate the growth of neural connections in a child's brain by laying the foundation, the building blocks, for all future learning. The authors have prepared a book early childhood educators will find invaluable in developing children's critical and creative thinking skills. Chapter 1 establishes the philosophical basis for the text placing the common core standards in the proper perspective. '.we want to protect our students' social and emotional development from a rigid, developmentally inappropriate, skill-and-drill based classroom.' Children are not in school to be subservient to common core standards, the standards must be developmentally appropriate to meet the needs of individual learners. Embedded within the pages of this book is the need for teachers to start with the child first.

The authors challenge educators as well provide a structure for understanding and accommodating the sensory-motor, social-emotional, and intellectual needs of each child and to celebrate the diversity found in every classroom. We embrace the Common Core with the understanding that children are not 'common' they are unique, each with his/her own special gifts, talents, and needs to be addressed, nurtured and developed. The thirty-four page appendix containing parent forms and letters, assessment checklists, and student pages will be very helpful and a big time saver for the classroom teacher. This is a book that should be in every early childhood classroom in every school in America!.